I was T-boned by a truck when I was in my little hatchback. He hit my passenger side and after the car stopped spinning around, I took my belt off but I couldn’t move my legs. I was super worried I would be in a wheelchair. I had to be cut out of the car and sent by helicopter to Townsville. My pelvis was fractured in 5 places and I was in hospital for 6 weeks. I found that really hard. I was on my back for so much time and I lost a lot of weight.
I was told that I could try and deliver my baby normally, but it wouldn’t be possible to know for sure until I actually tried.
The most difficult thing about labour was trying to stay focused. Toward the end I was in so much pain that I couldn’t even talk to anyone. It’s actually a little bit lonely. It’s not that no-one is listening to you, but it feels really hard to talk to anyone; I was that out of control. I really just needed someone to make the pain go away. It felt like I was really defeated.
It’s not that I didn’t want to have a caesarean, but I was really determined to try and have a natural birth. I’m one of those people who has to experience things. I was determined to try to have as natural birth as possible, but I was also open to whatever was best for baby and me. So if it ended up being a caesarean, I was happy with that too.
My heart broke for my partner Kirk. He was really struggling. even though they don't have to do the labour and stuff, it can be really difficult watching someone else in pain and not being able to help them as much as you’d like to.
He knew that I wanted to try and do it without pain relief, and he felt ‘I hope she doesn’t feel disappointed with me the next day. I hope she doesn’t feel like I didn’t stick up for what she wanted.’ He was worried that he might have let me down because he couldn’t encourage me through that hard part.
At the end of the day it doesn’t matter to me whether I have a natural birth or caesarean, because she came out perfect 😃
